d would go ahead a few
feet, picking a route. When he had made his decision, he called Blue.
Blue came that far, and no farther. Several times the little horse
balanced painfully and unsteadily like a goat, all four feet on a
boulder, waiting for his signal to advance. In this manner they
regained the trail, and proceeded as though nothing had happened.
Instances could be multiplied indefinitely.

A good animal adapts himself quickly. He is capable of learning by
experience. In a country entirely new to him he soon discovers the
best method of getting about, where the feed grows, where he can find
water. He is accustomed to foraging for himself. You do not need to
show him his pasturage. If there is anything to eat anywhere in the
district he will find it. Little tufts of bunch-grass growing
concealed under the edges of the brush, he will search out. If he
cannot get grass, he knows how to rustle for the browse of small
bushes. Bullet would devour sage-brush, when he could get nothing
else; and I have even known him philosophically to fill up on dry
pine-needles. There is no nutrition in dry pine-needles, but Bullet
got a satisfyingly full belly. On the trail a well-seasoned horse will
be always on the forage, snatching here a mouthful, yonder a single
spear of grass, and all without breaking the regularity of his gait, or
delaying the pack-train behind him. At the end of the day's travel he
is that much to the good.

By long observation thus you will construct your ideal of the mountain
horse, and in your selection of your animals for an expedition you will
search always for that ideal. It is only too apt to be modified by
personal idiosyncrasies, and proverbially an ideal is difficult of
attainment; but you will, with care, come closer to its realization
than one accustomed only to the conventionality of an artificially
reared horse would believe possible.

The ideal mountain horse, when you come to pick him out, is of medium
size. He should be not smaller than fourteen hands nor larger than
fifteen. He is strongly but not clumsily built, short-coupled, with
none of the snipy speedy range of the valley animal. You will select
preferably one of wide full forehead, indicating intelligence, low in
the withers, so the saddle will not be apt to gall him. His sureness
of foot should be beyond question, and of course he must be an expert
at foraging. A horse that knows but one or two kinds of feed, and that